St. Clair County Prosecutor Robert Haida says East St. Louis' problems are "caused by nightclubs being allowed to stay open."

"Go to any of those [night]clubs in Sauget, and it's the same thing;
it's just not talked about," contends DJ Snow. "They're trying to
pinpoint it and say it's just a black thing. It's not. As a white boy
who has worked in these clubs, I can vouch for that."

Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of after-hours clubs is that
in some cases the dance floor is the safest place people could be.

"If they got no place to go, it's only going to be worse," DJ Lonnie
Bee points out. "That means you have more people giving house parties.
And from my history of DJing, you have more crazy incidents at house
parties than you do at clubs, 'cause there's no control."

Nowhere does this line of reasoning hold true more than at Club
Casino, whose security measures may only be rivaled by those at a state
penitentiary.

All patrons are frisked and swiped with a metal detector. Sixteen
video cameras record areas both inside and out. A uniformed East St.
Louis police officer often sits in the entrance. Golf carts shuttle
customers to and from their cars.

And then there's the crew of nine bouncers who call themselves the
Goon Squad. Four men are stationed in the parking lot, five inside the
club. All look like they could play left tackle for the Rams.

The squad members claim their reputation alone deters most would-be
troublemakers, but if a scrap does break out, they trigger "fight
lights," strobes placed throughout the club, to alert fellow team
members. The guards generally issue two warnings before giving anyone
the boot. One of the combatants is kept behind for a few minutes to
prevent the clash from continuing outside.

"I would throw my own brother out if I had to," says Chico, a Goon
Squad member with light skin, sleepy eyes and arms the size of
anacondas. "But honestly, we get more women fights than anything else.
That's almost worse, because when women locked up, they locked
up."

The only club rule that seems to be consistently flouted is
Illinois' statewide smoking ban.

"We try to enforce it," Taylor says with a shrug. "But when they see
us coming, they just put it out."

Mark Bramlett of the Illinois State Patrol says that none of the
fifteen homicides mentioned in his agency's report are linked to Club
Casino. Nevertheless, he says, the club's patrons cause problems after
they leave the virtual lockdown.

"I can tell you anecdotally that we've had shootings on [Interstate]
255 early in the morning from patrons who've left that particular
club," Bramlett says. "I can't call it a drive-by, 'cause both suspects
were in cars driving down the interstate shooting at each other."

"There are just certain things that are beyond our control," Taylor
counters. "You can't fault us for that."

Nearly everyone — Taylor included — agrees there's a
seedy side to East St. Louis nightlife that the city could do without.
There is, however, no such consensus when it comes to a solution.

Many of those in favor of rolling back the clubs' hours acknowledge
that any new measures will be counterproductive if not applied to all
of St. Clair County.

City council member Delbert Marion has a full-time job as chief of
police in the tiny village of Brooklyn, a few miles north of East St.
Louis on Route 3. The town is home to several popular strip clubs that
remain open all night. Marion says the crowd the strip joints draw
already strains his eight-man police force.

"On a Friday night our population already doubles," he says. "If
East St. Louis is at the forefront of closing early, those displaced
people are going to come to little communities like Alorton,
Centreville and Washington Park, and other city leaders are going to
have to look at doing the same thing."

"It doesn't matter if you close down at 10 p.m. or 2 a.m.," agrees
former East St. Louis Mayor Carl Officer. "People who really want to go
out and do their drinking will do it in those neighboring
communities."

Officer proposes setting a last call of 11 p.m. for all places that
sell liquor in East St. Louis. Business owners who want to continue
serving would pay a fee for each additional hour they remain open. The
licenses could be priced on a sliding scale based on square footage and
gross revenue.

Officer, who consulted with Marion and NAACP leader Johnny Scott to
create the plan, says the additional fees could cover the cost of
installing surveillance cameras and stationing a uniformed police
officer at each club.

"How are you going to put men and women out of business strictly
because of an hourly thing?" asks Officer, who now runs his family's
mortuary business. "Business is tough enough as it is. You need to
treat everyone fairly and protect the employees of these places."